Mac OS X Mavericks

This page documents the configuration of Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) on various Macs - particularly MacBook Pro with Retina Display and 27" iMac. We've still got a few places that apply to Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) as we move over to Mavericks.

System Preferences

Trackpad

Point & Click

CHECK Tap to click

CHECK Three finger drag

Scroll & Zoom

UNCHECK Smart zoom

NOTE: Enabling "tap and a half" for dragging is under Accessibility.

Desktop & Screen Saver

Desktop

Picture: Apple / Desktop Pictures / Sky

UNCHECK Translucent menu bar

Screen Saver

Screen Saver: Flurry

Start after: 10 Minutes

Dock

CHECK Minimize windows into application icon

CHECK Automatically hide and show the Dock

Language & Text

Language

Edit List…

UNCHECK everything except English

CHECK U.S. English

Region

Dates

Customize…

Short: YYYY-MM-DD

Input Sources

CHECK Keyboard & Character Viewer

CHECK Dvorak - Qwerty Command key

CHECK U.S.

CHECK U.S. Extended

CHECK Unicode Hex Input

Security & Privacy

General

Require password: 1 minute after sleep or screen saver begins

Firewall

CLICK Turn On Firewall

Firewall Options…

Add applications:

Chrome

Colloquy

Firefox

Skype

Songbird

Transmission

Spotlight

Privacy

ADD Downloads directory

Energy Saver

Battery

Computer sleep: 10 minutes

Display sleep: 5 minutes

Power Adapter

Computer sleep: 15 minutes

Display sleep: 10 minutes

Keyboard

Keyboard

CHECK Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys

NOTE: Use Fn+F10 for mute, etc.

Turn off (keyboard backlight) when computer is not used for: 1 min

Modifier Keys…

Caps Lock key: Control

Shortcuts

Full keyboard access: All controls (allows tabbing to include buttons and drop-downs)

Launchpad & Dock

UNCHECK Turn Dock Hiding On/Off

Mission Control

UNCHECK Mission Control

UNCHECK Application windows

UNCHECK Show Dashboard

UNCHECK Show Desktop

UNCHECK Move left a space

UNCHECK Move right a space

UNCHECK Switch to Desktop 1

Keyboard

Move focus to the menu bar - Command+/

App Shortcuts

All Applications

Show Help menu - Command+Shift+/

NOTE: Could not get Show Xyz menu to work for any other menus.

NOTE: Command+Shift+G will open a "Go to folder" box in Finder and any file dialog.

Terminal

Select Next Tab - Control+Tab

Select Previous Tab - Control+Shift+Tab

Print & Scan

Add Printer or Scanner… (+)

Select each printer it finds

Set name and location

Use AirPrint if available

Bluetooth

UNCHECK On

UNCHECK Show Bluetooth in menu bar

Sharing

Computer Name: Hope

Edit…

Local Hostname: hope.local

Users & Groups

Guest User

UNCHECK Allow guests to log in to this computer

UNCHECK Allow guests to connect to shared folders

Login Options

Automatic login: Off

Display login window as: Name and password

Date & Time

Time Zone

Time Zone: Central Time

Closest City: St. Louis, MO - United States

Clock

CHECK Show the day of the week

Accessibility

Audio

CHECK Flash screen when an alert occurs

Mouse & Trackpad

Trackpad Options…

CHECK Enable dragging and select "without Drag Lock"

Zoom

CHECK Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom:

Control

Battery Indicator

Click on battery indicator

CHECK Show Percentage

Terminal

Preferences

Settings

Add a profile for BoochTek

Select Basic

Select Duplicate Settings from tools menu

Name new item: BoochTek

Select BoochTek

Text

Font: Courier New, Bold, 18 pt

CHECK Blink cursor

Window

Background Color: off-white/yellowish

Window Size: 120x32

Keyboard

Edit to change PageUp to send \033[5~ to applications

Edit to change PageDown to send \033[6~ to applications

Edit to change Home to send \033[H to applications

Edit to change End to send \033[F to applications

Edit to change Shift+PageUp to Scroll Page Up

Edit to change Shift+PageDown to Scroll Page Down

Edit to change Shift+Home to Scroll to Top

Edit to change Shift+End to Scroll to Bottom

Advanced

UNCHECK Audible bell

CHECK Visual bell

Add a profile for BoochTek Presentations

Select BoochTek

Select Duplicate Settings from tools menu

Name new item: BoochTek Presentations

Select BoochTek Presentations

Text

Font: Courier New, Bold, 29 pt

Window

Window Size: 80x24

Set BoochTek as the default

Select BoochTek

Hit the Default button at the bottom of the list

Startup

On startup, open: New window with settings: BoochTek

Dock

We'll install the dockutil tool, so we can add and remove dock items from the command line.

Locate Database

Hostname

The Computer Name is set in the Sharing Preferences pane, but this doesn't affect what the hostname command returns. To remedy this, issue the following command:

sudo scutil --set HostName hope

Home Directory

We'd like to create some more "standard" directories in our home directory.

cd ~
mkdir-p Work Work/Projects Work/Training Personal

For some reason, after reformatting and reinstalling Mac OS X Mountain Lion, my home directory ended up with 040777 permissions. Bundler and some other programs complained about this being world writable, and it truly is a security issue. So we manually removed the write permissions: